I was a topsecret paid meme expert for Facebook Jocie Mintz graphic by Joey Sola-Sole
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orking for Facebook would be a career highlight for most. For me, it was a side hustle. Every week for three months, Facebook paid me to tell a data researcher whether or not the memes he shared were funny. It was the best and most bizarre job I’ll ever have. Most teens see Facebook as an app exclusively for their parents and grandparents. The past several years have been rocky for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO; the app has become a base for spreading misinformation, having possibly influenced the 2016 election outcomes and upsetting privacy breaches. The app has seen a sharp decline in users, losing over 15 million users in the past two years. In response, the company is working to attract teen users by creating new, engaging platforms. These efforts included creating a meme-sharing page that mimicked popular humor-based apps but was run through the Facebook app itself. Designers unimaginatively named the project “Facebook LOL.” I first became involved with Facebook LOL through dubious means. In early September 2018, I responded to the sketchiest ad of all time on Facebook. It said something along these lines: Are you a teen? Do you like memes? Do you want money? My parents always warned me to never click on suspicious advertisements or give my email away to strangers, but as a teen who likes memes and wants money, I simply couldn’t resist. Later that month, I received an email from a Facebook
